Collapse of the Folk Clubs

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 May 07 - 08:01 AM

No need to convince me - I'm a Boston lad, albeit first generation - so I know I don't really count as a real yellow belly.

I quite agree about the songs - theres my song Buster the Line Dancing Dog, for example. Few have equalled it.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 May 07 - 07:55 AM

wld - very few people can, truthfully, claim to know intimately the work of EVERY performer, past and present.

It simply means that many of us lead an extremely busy but happy life, earning a crust from the day-job for a great part of it, and our recreation time is thus limited and there are therefore some performers whom we haven't come across during our 'off-duty' hours.

It doesn't make us numpties.

But the countess is an intelligent woman and knows that perfectly well, she just has a pathological hatred of Lincolnshire, and an overwhelming and unnatural desire to bait its inhabitants! LOL!

Strange, when you consider the great songs that came from the tradition in that neck of the (back)woods.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 May 07 - 07:35 AM

Not sure why this should be so astounding - its him who insists folksinging never had a majority following. Obviously we're part of the despised majority.

I don't suppose he knows our work - sounds like he'd take a pretty dim view of our activities if he was unfortunate enough to come across it!

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 May 07 - 07:20 AM

For the sake of getting the 400, I should just like to express my amazement that Jim Carroll's work and reputation seems to be unknown in Lincolnshire. Good grief!

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 May 07 - 07:12 AM

Where did I ever say a word about Heather Wood's vocals? Nowhere, that's where. (Would never have dared!) The YT stopped performing because Heather and Royston wanted to go off and do their art music and Peter wanted to take a different direction but concentrate on trad and his own work. That was in 1969 and I was at the farewell concert.

Wandering even more wildly off topic, it's now getting on for two decades since Messrs Bellamy & Wood left this world, but Heather who I saw not long ago (NOT in a club), is, thankfully, still with us.

People must be able to perform (and adapt the tradition)

Indeed, yes. The tradition must be respected but conventions can be broken. This must not mean that wannabe performers should be allowed to escape from their bedrooms before they can perform in public, and if 'organisers' have a role at all, it is to keep them offstage. The 'good-enough-for-f*lk' attitude is an abomination and adds exponentially to the public perception of tradarts as an object of ridicule.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 May 07 - 07:02 AM

well I think i,ll just go and do a bit of playing and singing,Something I manage most days.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 May 07 - 06:50 AM

Jim, a lot of what you say is true - but you cannot and must not exclude people from folk clubs or they cease to be folk clubs. A fair proportion of what I do is traditional (ish) but I seek ways to arrange it and give it more presence. The onus there is on the performer. It is not the position of a club organiser to say that as I use a guitar it is unacceptable, that because I alter melodies and rhythms (and words) it is unacceptable, that because my voice is not bel canto it is unacceptable.

Countess, it would be nice if everyone was as good as (say) Martin Carthy, but they aren't, and once you say that Heather Wood's wobbly vocals are not good enough, you have destroyed the Young Tradition. And so it goes on.

People must be able to perform (and adapt the tradition). It doesn't make what they do necessarily folk music, but if people can't make their music they are left to be consumers, the commoditisation of music is complete, and most performers/people are excluded.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 26 May 07 - 05:52 AM

Guest...I do apologise for not being more specific about the 'Who are yous' as it was not meant to target you but those who have their fixed ideas about what Folk Clubs are or should be and choose to knock those they know nothing about....and if you look back over the thread you can plainly see who those people are.
I totally agree that being a member of a forum gives you the right to express an opinion and I believe most people on the cat welcome opinions but when insults are thrown out towards people or clubs which are not known to the thrower, that is a different kettle of fish. (Must be a song in there somewhere).
Most of my singing was done in the 60's-70's and into the early eighties and I tended to stick (mostly) to trad songs with some Donovan and Dylan thrown in for variety. I was not brilliant then...neither am I now but I like to have a sing now and again and I am tolerated.
You say you left the Folk Revival when the singing deteriorated to a level below that which you found acceptable..... assuming that you were perhaps quite a good performer yourself..why leave? when your performances would no doubt raise the standard........
How many more have left, like you, for the same reasons? Perhaps that is why there is a decline in the number of good performers some talk of on the thread.
I now go to the Clubs locally for the craic as well as for the performances which may be as I described in my last posting but are what has developed in this area.....I am quite satisfied with it although I would enjoy having 'the good old days' back...I am moving on with the times and enjoying my life...part of which is in the clubs I attend.
By the same token, I would love to have my first 'Austin Mini' back which was so simple in form and so little with it that could go wrong.
Modern cars have developed into something almost unrecognisable from then with all the gadgetry and different lines. Sadly those days have gone with Clubs and the car so what shall we do? Move on or whinge...?
I guess I'm moving on.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 May 07 - 05:28 AM

"and I never heard of organisers of Beethoven concerts watering down their music to get more bums on seats."

Not necessarily true Jim. How many venues in the UK are running truly 'classical' (for want of a better word) concerts, consisting of nothing but music from the 'heavieweight' composers like Beethoven? Very few, and those are mostly in the large conurbations. There aren't enough interested arses to fill the seats anywhere else. But lots of concerts with a mix of 'real' classical and pseudo-classical-'pop' stuff, like the ones in Sherwood Forest during the summer, which are attended by thousands.

Are you suggesting that folk music should go down the same route - i.e. just a small number of elitist clubs in dreadful, dirty places like Fackin' Landon, putting on "Real" folk music at sky-high ticket prices for the small number of overpaid stockbrokers, marketing executives and conservative party-members who can afford it? Or would you prefer it to remain what it always was, and IMHO should still be - the people's music, sung and played for the joy it brings, by anyone who feels inspired to sing and play, in pubs, parlours and public and private places all over the land?

If it's the first option, then RIP folk music - it never stood a chance. But if it's the latter, then join in because that's the way it's going.

It's FIFO Jim.

And don't bother, countess - you'll be talking to the hand.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 May 07 - 05:03 AM

'Folk singing never had a majority following'

I think you're all flogging a dead horse. If you got Jim to admit that the idea of a folk culture which excluded the vast majority of the population was a nonsense, then you'd have to get him to admit that the set of attitudes that emptied the folk clubs was wrong.

That was his life. Why would he apologise for it. He thinks he was right. Maybe he was, who knows....?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 26 May 07 - 04:32 AM

"Who are you to suggest that we are some backwoods venue? Who are you to knock some Club you have no idea about? Who are you to judge what is right and what is wrong in Folk Clubs in the modern day?"
Sorry Georgiansilver; I only partially answered your question.
I am a participator in a forum discussing folk clubs. I have the same right as anybody participating in a public discussion on folk clubs to express a view on what they read during that discussion (unless you wish to change the rules of engagement and include those who only support your own point of view! - otherwise, let the battle continue) If my interpretation of the discussion is incorrect, please, please, please put me right - so far I have only heard a defence of what I believe to be happening in the clubs.
Backwoodsman.
You may well be right; if so we've failed to instigate an interest in folksong - that is no excuse for pushing an erzatz, dumbed down version in the clubs. Bums on seats are important only if audiences are being given folksongs in a worthwhile form, otherwise it will remain the godawful stuff that was forced down our throats in school.
As it happens, I don't agree with your estimate of the potential - I just believe it takes aork to win people.
By the way, I'm not just interested in traditional songs; I believe the tradition has provided a format for creating new songs.
Folk singing never had a majority following; but at one time the revival had more participants than those listening to classical music and I never heard of organisers of Beethoven concerts watering down their music to get more bums on seats.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Rasener
Date: 26 May 07 - 04:20 AM

Hear Hear Backwoodsman

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 May 07 - 03:56 AM

Jim, you are absolutely 100% correct.

BUT - and it's a big 'but', unfortunately - I'm convinced that it's an inescapable fact that there are insufficient people out there, whose appetites for that kind of music are sufficiently voracious, to maintain any sort of club structure except in a very few areas. You and the countess and a few others may enjoy a full evening of trad songs, but I'd dare to suggest that the vast majority wouldn't.

To keep a club running you need arses on seats, and the evidence is there that a continuous diet of solely trad music will not get a sufficient number of those arses on those seats - there simply aren't enough people around who have that deep, all-embracing love of traditional songs and music that you and the countess clearly have. They're just not out there. Trad music is a Minority sport, with an emboldened capital 'M'. Sad but true.

So what are we left with? Well, pretty much what we've got in a lot of the clubs I visit - a mix of the traditional with the contemporary which, although you and the countess might say it's a dumbing-down process that wrecks the true purity of the art, it encourages arses to put themselves on seats and gives a vehicle for performance of the old songs, albeit alongside what some sneeringly describe as 'snigger-snogwriter' material. Surely to God it's better to hear them this way than for them not to be heard at all?

And it's also a fact that many people are awakened to the greatness of our traditional songs by hearing them in such a context - I know of young people who have come to a club as performers of self-written, teenage-angst, I'm-going-to-shoot-my-girlfriend's-dad kind of stuff, only to be 'converted' by hearing fine traditional songs well-sung, and to themselves become accomplished performers of trad material.

Give and take - an old-fashioned concept maybe, but it's all it takes to keep people happy. Polarised attitudes, and single-issue musical politics such as we've seen in this unhappy (and sometimes appalling) thread, aren't any sort of panacea to breathe life into a corpse (although I don't subscribe to the belief that the patient is even slightly poorly, let alone dead).

How can there be peace and joy in music when malcontents and opposing factions are so intent on ripping each others' heads off and pissing down each others' necks?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 May 07 - 03:06 AM

Hear, hear.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 26 May 07 - 02:57 AM

I am no longer part of the folk revival; I took a conscious decision to leave when I witnessed the singing deteriorate below a level I found acceptable and when the songs I heard ceased to be what I had come to believe as folk songs. I wasn't alone in leaving; thousands of us went around the same time and for the same reasons.
Since then, my contact with the clubs has been sparse, but folk song has been part of my life for so long, I have maintained an interest in what is happening with very occasional visits to clubs, through discussions with people who are far more in touch with what is happening, and through what information is available to me through albums, magazines and (god help me) threads such as this one.
Here I have read that "folk song is boring", "people are frightened off by long ballads", "folk clubs should disassociate themselves from folk songs and should all be presenting mid-Victorian, middle class glees and catches" , "singing in tune and remembering words is "exacting" and not worth bothering with", "thinking about the songs spoils you for having "fun"", "anybody who takes folk song seriously is a "fundamentalist"" (now where did I put that car bomb!!!), and a whole host of garbage which makes Kim Howell look like the folk revival's greatest champion.
Is the Lewes club for which The Snail presented that depressing Q&A, the same one that holds ballad weekends? If so, it doesn't make sense.
The last time I heard a ballad sung reasonably well at a club I felt I should erect a hide and 'observe' it; they have become so rare!
The greatest impression I have gained from many of these discussions, with a few notable exceptions, is one of contempt: for the old songs and ballads, for the singers who passed them on to us and for the intelligences of those who make the effort to drag themselves out on a cold, wet night to visit their local club.
The last time we visited a club in the UK (last year) we were left with the feeling that we had blundered into a funeral and we should be paying respect to the deceased.
At one time the revival was the jewel in the crown of English folk song; Loyd, MacColl, Killen, Roy Harris, Cyril Tawney, Terry Whelan, Harry Boardman, Terry Yarnell and many, many other well and lesser known singers who brought skill, enthusiasm and, most of all, love and respect to the old songs.
Nowadays, it appears to me, most of the clubs hang like so many albatrosses around the necks of those wishing to see folk song passed on to the next generation. We have spent a great deal of time and effort trying to make available some of the songs we and others have collected from the older singers, mainly through archives and a handful of albums we have put out. Discussions such as this one leave me with the feeling that we would do better locking our recordings away from people who appear, at best, to have no interest whatever in the source singers and what they had to offer.
We spent twenty years in the company of Walter Pardon, talking, listening to and recording him, and the overwhelming impression I am left with is that we should archive those recordings and hope that the next generation will show more interest and respect than this one has.
Who am I to "to judge what is right and what is wrong in Folk Clubs in the modern day?" Maybe I have no right whatever; I have spent most of my life involved in folk song, mainly in the clubs, and I have got a great deal of pleasure, and some knowledge out of that time, but I believe that, along with that pleasure comes a responsibility to play fair by the Walter Pardons, Tom Lenihans, Harry Coxs, Sam Larners and the many others who gave us what we have.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 May 07 - 02:54 AM

Hear hear.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 25 May 07 - 07:44 PM

Tonight I have once again been to my local Folk Club at Gainsborough. Performances ranged from below average to very talented.....two new performers who came to have a go and were encouraged....asked to sing extra songs as they had come some distance to perform. There was a great atmosphere and a lot of fun as well as a diversity of music and talent. Watever anyone says..these clubs are destined to carry on as long as there are people who are prepared to put themselves out to run them and people at ANY LEVEL who want to perform. Who are you to say we have to have standards????? Who are you to suggest that we are some backwoods venue? Who are you to knock some Club you have no idea about? Who are you to judge what is right and what is wrong in Folk Clubs in the modern day? Some of you are so far up your own backsides you cannot see the truth!!!!
Folk/accoustic/open mic or whatever clubs are progressing in their own way and not collapsing.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Tootler
Date: 25 May 07 - 07:31 PM

This thread does seem to have a very negative tone to it. It's no wonder that Jim Carrol gets the impression that English Folk Clubs are dire.

In my limited experience, most people who go to folk clubs and sing on singers nights (I am not talking about guest nights or concert venues here) meet Jim Carrol's minimum standards, which, by the way, seem perfectly reasonable standards to aim at and are achievable by the majority of people.

One thing that does seems to give more people trouble than any other is remembering words and there are some people who are otherwise good singers that seem find this a real problem. In such a case I, for one, would rather they had a prompt in front of them than they "blanked" at a crucial point in the song. I have been to concerts where the performers had words and music in front of them, and not just classical concerts either, so why shouldn't amateurs be permitted the same.

The folk clubs I go to I find are very welcoming to newcomers who are encouraged to sing, but no pressure is put on them if they don't want to. The ethos is to encourage people to "have a go". I have seen people who have been persuaded to have a go after a little gentle arm twisting turn in a creditable performance.

We should not forget singers nights are, by and large, about enjoying the music by taking part rather than just listening to others performing. Certainly that's my motivation. I go because I enjoy singing and playing which I try to do to the best of my ability but I have no particular ambitions to get up in front of an audience and make money by performing.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 May 07 - 05:25 PM

Jim,

Fortunately things are not that bad. In fact there are some great singers and some wonderful musicians. And there are some terrific youngsters coming through. Generally speaking they tend not to bother with folk clubs but go dancing and to festivals.

Many of the clubs that remain have good standards - they may give people floor spots having seen them in sessions at festivals for example. Also in my experience people who come to a club organiser and hope to get a booking (or at least their faces and music better known) tend to be able to do things to a good standard.

I was at an occasional club last week. They run when there is an artist on tour they can reckon to get a audience for and the artists is prepared to work for (I guess) 80% of the gate.

So, no advertising, except at the pub itself, no attempt to take email addresses for future gigs. The organisers themselves were the support act and played four songs using a variety of instruments. Then they wondered why it took so long to sound check. They left the door open so noise from the pool table came through.

When they got around to checking the artists (Frankie Gavin and TIm Edey as it happened the lines were crossed and Tim Edey had to sort it out. It was as bad an organised gig as I have ever been to.

And people wonder why folk clubs collapse?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:58 PM

I find it very enlightning to have:
"singing in tune, remembering and understanding the words, showing some understanding of the meaning of the songs" (the basics for anybody who sings in public I would have thought) - described as exacting.
On the other hand we have:
"If I had a guitar, a mate with an acoustic bass and another with a bodhran and and we played goth and punk that would be OK too?
And if I then sang out of key and it was pretty obvious that the guitarist knew one chord, the bass player hadn't ever played before and the bodhran player had no sense of rhythm, (not unusual in my experience of bodhran players) that would be OK too?
If I then said we came to the folk club because no-one else would let us play anywhere in Sussex and its environs because we were so awful - would you let us back next week?" -
all of which is apparently acceptable.
I think Les has his question answered!
If these are the values that todays club scene is peddling, I'm extremely glad to be out of it.
Who do I reckon? - happy to provide a list, top of which would probably be Kevin Michell John Lyons and Len Graham though Ireland can come up with many more who can sing in tune, remember the words and who enjoy, respect and understand the songs they sing.
If you can't rise above the somewhat pathetic standards some of you appear to have set yourselves, English folksong will survive only in libraries, archives and record shelves; probably the safest places for it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 07 - 02:29 PM

"Average" means "arithmetic mean".

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 May 07 - 02:25 PM

A little thread drift if I may - Tom McConville is an Alexander technique teacher. Worth investigating if you have back/shoulder problems.......

http://www.tommcconville.co.uk/Alexander.htm

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Tootler
Date: 25 May 07 - 02:18 PM

Did you know that half the performers in folk clubs are below average?

No, half of them are below median.

<pedant mode>
Actually both are right. "Average" has no real meaning in statistics. There are three common "measures of centre"; arithmetic mean, median and mode. The use of "average" in general speech does not really distinguish between these. Just to be further pedantic, if the distribution is symmetrical, a very common situation, then half the performers are below the mean, the median and the mode - in these circumstances, half the performers are below average.
</pedant mode>

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 May 07 - 08:05 AM

Jim, Tom McConville is a very fine fiddler and singer. Hails from the NE of England, and performs frequently alongside Pauline Cato, an excellent exponent of the Northumbrian Pipes.

They are excellent performers of traditional tunes and songs.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 May 07 - 05:22 AM

John Foreman is very much around.
This is despite the fact hat the last time I saw him it was at a funeral but it fortunately wasn't his own.
He looks exactly the same as he did when I first met him 40 years ago.
And just as good a performer . . . and printer.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 07 - 05:08 AM

No, half of them are below median.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:55 AM

Did you know that half the performers in folk clubs are below average?

:D

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:54 AM

John Foreman, is he still around? I used to like him - haven't seen him for a long long time.

He was last time I heard and unless my memory fails me - which happens more and more these days - he appeared at one of the Lewes Clubs last year.

http://www.tommcconville.co.uk/

There is a real danger in describing the collapse of folk clubs with the collapse of folk music.

When there were loads of clubs there were few festivals. Talking to a group of aging folkies gathered together last night we could only think of the National, Sidmouth, Whitby, Cleethorpes, and Fylde in the early 70's.

Now there are something like 350 (AFO figures) catering for a wide diversity of paying customers and style of festivals.

I was at a festival last weekend and there were loads of young people some local, some who had travelled, and a look at the guest list will show there were a lot of very good young performers both singers and instrumentalists.

Sheffield does not really support a traditional style folk club in the city centre - though there are a couple of excellent ones just outside the city. In he late sixties and early seventies it had about five. They stopped because the pubs changed and the organisers got exhausted.

But we have a folk festival in October with loads of sessions and concerts and dancing, we have sessions most nights of the week all over the city, and on some nights more than one.

Good places for people to try their voices out in public without too many problems.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:53 AM

....and no, weelitttledrummer, that was Tom Gilfellon. This is Tom McConville. Wonderful fiddler, singer and all round good guy.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:49 AM

It's no good. Curiosity has got the better of my commmon sense. Jim, who(still alive) does ring your bells?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:17 AM

Jim,

I am not sorry I started this, it should have read:

Sorry, I started this. The post before mine seemed to doubt my description of collapse and I was just restating it.

Duff singers are a problem for all who run clubs and duff club management is too.

I have been bored sensless in some folk clubs and am too offended my people who cant sing, forget the words and retune guitars while we wait. I guess only being average is hat keeps the average down?

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:09 AM

Jim

Why are you being so awful to someone who is at least out there trying to organise something -possibly not up to your exacting standards - but someone definitely in there fighting for a his vision of folk music?

The point is that its not 1968. In those days you could be as foul in your attitude and sling as much shit around as you wanted, and there was still the folk club round the corner to go to, and the one round the next corner.

The entire movement is pretty much in the shit every which way at the moment.   What with radio presenters who see themselves as mates of the stars; the complete collapse of the centre ground - no more Spinners Campbell Group or Corries; 98% of the population of England not recognising what Martin Carthy does as an English folksong.

Its easy to sneer at the elements that made up the English folk revival and provided the clubs with their hey day. And its easy to sneer at what individual clubs accomplish.
Surely - unworthy of you?
Tom McConville - wasn't he the guy in the High Level Ranters with Johhny Handle?

al

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 25 May 07 - 04:08 AM

"You are not good enough to sing to us" is self aggrandising and offensive.
Put as bluntly as that, it certainly would be, but that's not what I understood from Jim's post. Unless you are a performance venue, as the Lincs club seems to be, then - as Jim says - you stand or fall by the standard of the regulars.
What's needed is subtlety and slectivity on the part of organisers to ensure that people who can't sing don't become part of the aural furniture. We all know singers and clubs where one particular person taking the floor is the cue for the regulars to head for the bogs or the bar.
You would actually be doing the bad singers a favour (let alone the long-suffering audiences) a favour if you were to say. "Look, if you get here half an hour early we can do a workshop on technique."
The unquestioning acceptance of any standard of performance, however bad, does no-one any favours and opens both performer and organiser up to ridicule.
To me there's nothing wrong or elitist in creating a system where people feel they have to earn the right to be floor singers and be encouraged on that path.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:49 AM

I'm sorry, but "You are not good enough to sing to us" is self aggrandising and offensive. Will you be demanding bow ties, and proper tugging of forelocks next?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:47 AM

Jim Carroll
(none of those you quote in your posting ((can't remember hearing Tom McConville)) ring any of my bells – sorry).

?!?!?!?!?!?

Come and see us sometime. You might enjoy yourself. A great many do.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:32 AM

Snail,
Any club organiser who allows their club platform to be used for lazy or inept performers to practice, is doing nobody any favours. It is insulting to audiences (náive as they may be), who turn up expecting to hear good songs well sung (folk songs – if you call yourself a folk club - and yes, as Richard Bridge pointed out, there is a definition of folk song, and if you mean something else you should call yourself something else).
It is deeply patronising to pretend that poor performers are anything but poor; if you want to assist new singers to improve, set up singing workshops. If they can't or won't learn - tough, let them try something else (Monty Python's one-legged actor applying for the role of Tarzan springs to mind). Allowing bad singers to humiliate themselves in public is hardly going to help them develop or to continue performing. It is still possible to hear recordings of Florence Foster Jenkins making a fool of herself in front of a Carnegie Hall audience because her well-meaning (and very wealthy) husband booked the place half-a-dozen decades ago .
Personally I don't care if your guest list includes Joseph Taylor, Phil Tanner Jeannie Robertson and Sam Larner (none of those you quote in your posting ((can't remember hearing Tom McConville)) ring any of my bells – sorry). As far as I'm concerned, a club stands and falls entirely by its residents, they are the ones who make clubs relevant locally and ensure the future. Good guests should be the icing on a well baked cake.
What you described in your Q&A was crap and if that is what you present, that is the yardstick that you'll be judged by.
Les FC;
I believe there should be a standard reached before any singer attempts to perform publicly, for their own sake as well as for the club, for the audience, and for the future of the songs. It is not a particularly high one: singing in tune, remembering and understanding the words, showing some understanding of the meaning of the songs and the disciplines that the genre demands – no, not opera; for me, and I guess for you, folk-song implies folk style and function.
Perhaps those styles and functions might be a subject for a separate thread (this one is getting a bit ungainly).
I hope you were not serious about being sorry you starting this thread. I have singularly failed when I have tried to post to this forum as a member and I rely on people like yourself and the Cap'n for brain fodder.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Nick
Date: 24 May 07 - 08:48 PM

I'll post something tomorrow about my experiences in folk things over the last week (York Folk day - Flaxton whatever we call it - Thirsk folk club) but an observation that myself and a friend chatted about as we tried to seek out new places to play (and succeeded) on our way to go and sing.

1 People coming and singing the same things again and again and again at some point gets boring however much you value friends and traditions - or (in extremes) everyone dies

2 Survival depends on the influx of the new

3 Newness brings its rewards and its challenges. New arrivals change what was there before because if they can't there's no point in being there.

I thought almost by definition there would be no folk tradition without the effect of the people who keep it going.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 May 07 - 08:41 PM

John Foreman, is he still around? I used to like him - haven't seen him for a long long time.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 24 May 07 - 06:28 PM

What's happening? I agree with Countess!

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 May 07 - 06:01 PM

IMHO if you go to the Pigs Ear Kentish Horse Folk Ale you will see the "club format" (ie named timed slots and some big names) running very well, and a lot of pissed punters enjoying themselves - and even some folk music.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 May 07 - 05:53 PM

I believe that the collapse of the folk clubs may have something to do with the fact that "folk singers" don't support other "folk singers". Backbiting, envy and scuffling for gigs has something to do with the business side not visible to outsiders.

Also, the folk club in the States seems to be coffee houses in churches. This is an artificial construct that puts singers with stringed instrument accompaniment on a raised platform with a microphone and terrible electronic sounding pickups. It's become an over-worked stereotype and much of the song output is hackneyed and has no historical or musical depth. The alternative to this is a noisy bar. Drunks are not the best audiences.

The stage concerts are overpriced and the shows have become so studied that if you see an artist do one performance, you will see the exact same thing years later.

Folk music will survive regardless of the folk club. It thrives in the living rooms and informal gatherings where people really want to share their music without being "big stars".


Frank

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 May 07 - 05:51 PM

How?

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 24 May 07 - 05:47 PM

Au contraire.

Karl Foreman of Madness is the son of John Foreman, the broadsheet king, y'know.
That makes them a Camden Town folk band.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 May 07 - 05:38 PM

Oh, no, that would have to be a confession. Madness?????

Tu blagues.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 24 May 07 - 04:40 PM

FFS GS, if somebody speaks from the experience of having been at dozens of clubs over the years and describes how the better perfomers have moved on to other venues, they mean exactly that.
I too have done the very same and my experience mirrors that of Mr Ginger.
True, I haven't been to this gaff in Lincolnshire (wherever it is) nor to the Lewes Arms (though I have been to the Royal Oak in Lewes several times and regard it as one of the best venues in the land).
But I've also seen far too many dirty old gits as described by Dave who can't even remember the words to their idiot ditties, far too many teenagers who ought to have been confined to their bedrooms for several years longer and far too many tone-deaf wannabes.
But One Step Beyond?
Who's booking Madness these days? I'd go . . .

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 May 07 - 04:09 PM

Well I suppose you are entitled to your impressions...whatever they happen to be based on. Personally I don't like to sit in judgement on anything that I don't have a first hand knowledge of...but that's the way I function. You are obviously one step beyond that which I desire to tread.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 24 May 07 - 02:51 PM

Georgiansilver, I speak as I find. I have been to dozens of clubs over the years and I have seen a marked decline - the better musicians and singers have moved on to other venues, and the regulars get more and more unhygienic and eccentric. Clearly Lincs and Sussex are beacons of excellence (though the list of notable guests featured the same names as could have been seen twenty or even thirty years ago!), but my impression is one of mediocrity and slow senescence.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 May 07 - 12:01 PM

Not as far as I am concerned I gave up organising anything once I got to sixty - four years ago.

Leave it to the youngsters is my motto. So long as they practice.

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 24 May 07 - 11:34 AM

Has the collapse of Folk Clubs anything to do with, looking at the length of this thread, all talk and no do???????????????????????????

Subject: RE: Collapse of the Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 24 May 07 - 11:04 AM

Folkiedave
week after week of well-practised professionals

Looking at the seventeen Saturdays covered by the website listing, I would say that five could be classed as professionals, seven are singarounds/sessions and the rest are high quality amateurs.
Yes, we book well-practised professionals but as far as I recall we have never refused a floorsinger a spot because they weren't good enough, mainly because the situation hasn't occurred. OK, some of them may not be star quality but they still have something to offer. You seem to think that because we encourage everyone to sing or play that ALL the floorspots will be terrible. There are a lot of people out there who are very good indeed and perform for the love of it without wanting to make a career of it.
On consideration (I speak for myself, not the club), I do think that they ARE folk music. The superstars wouldn't exist without them. Conversely, the superstars give them something to aspire to.

Despite being nominally eclectic, we pretty obviously have a traditional bias so maybe that saves us from the teenage angst singer/songwriters. That might be a test case. At least one of our number might have to be physically restrained or at least sedated with large quantities of Harvey's Best Bitter.